Interrogating probabilistic inversion results for subsurface structural information

Abstract

SUMMARY The goal of a scientific investigation is to find answers to specific questions. In geosciences, this is typically achieved by solving an inference or inverse problem and interpreting the solution. However, the answer obtained is often biased because the solution to an inverse problem is non-unique and human interpretation is a biased process. Interrogation theory provides a systematic way to find optimal answers by considering their full uncertainty estimates and by designing an objective function that defines desirable qualities in the answer. In this study, we demonstrate interrogation theory by quantifying the size of a particular subsurface structure. The results show that interrogation theory provides an accurate estimate of the true answer, which cannot be obtained by direct, subjective interpretation of the solution mean and standard deviation. This demonstrates the value of interrogation theory. It also shows that fully nonlinear uncertainty assessments may be critical in order to address real-world scientific problems; this goes some way towards justifying their computational expense.